Investors at the Global Investors Meet in Bangalore last month offered to invest Rs. 70,000 crore in the power sector, according to Shivayogi C. Kalasad, Director (Administration and Human Resources), Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd.
He was speaking at the inauguration of the fifth international conference on industrial and information systems at the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka (NITK), Surathkal, on Friday.
Mr. Kalasad said that investors had come forward to invest in the production of power from gas and renewable energy sources, besides thermal plants. According to an estimate, the country required Rs. 5 lakh crore investment in the power sector.
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Surya P. Sethi, former Principal Adviser (Power and Energy), Union Planning Commission, said that the country should lower its energy demand through conservation and higher energy efficiency. Mr. Sethi said that the need of the hour was to invent “disrupted technology” to achieve energy production targets.
“This technology completely changes the way we produce, transmit, distribute and consume energy,” he said.
Mr. Sethi said that solar energy was commercially unviable as it was expensive.
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Nuclear energy
Stating that nuclear energy was not the solution to meet the country's energy demand by 2031-32, he said the country had a nuclear power capacity of about 4 GW under operation. This was about 1 per cent of the 380 GW of global nuclear capacity.
Sandeep Sancheti, Director, NITK, spoke.